Balloons are commonly used as festive decorations to signify the celebration of some important event or anniversary. Balloons are universally recognized as a sign of happiness and celebration. It is therefore commonplace to purchase one or more balloons to give as a gift when celebrating a significant occasion.
Helium-filled balloons and other balloons inflated with gases that make them buoyant under normal atmospheric conditions are by far the most popular type of balloon. Such balloons are by perceived necessity sold to consumers already inflated with the buoyant gas because most consumers to do not possess means to inflate them. These inflated balloons have a limited life span, owing to the tendency of the balloons to deflate over time as the buoyant gas leaks from the interior of the balloon to the exterior, either through the inflation orifice or through the balloon material itself. Also, inflated balloons are very bulky and fragile, exhibiting explosive decompression if damaged in any way.
Because of the limited life span and the bulky and fragile nature of inflated balloons, it is not practical to send them through the mail. The cost of mailing is prohibitive due to the size of the balloon, and the odds of the balloon arriving at its destination inflated are small, it being likely that the balloon will deflate during transit due to leakage or damage. For the same reasons, it is generally not practical to gift wrap balloons and give them as presents.
Because of these limitations in past balloon technology, it was generally impractical or infeasible to send an inflated balloon to someone through the mail or to give balloons as gift-wrapped presents due to their bulky nature and due to the delay between sending or wrapping and receipt.
In response to this problem, I invented the self-triggering inflatable balloon device described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,813, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety. In practice, I found that the operation of a valve by movement of a handle created an undesirably high resistance to the opening of a lid. In response to this problem, I had a valve designed for use in a self-triggering inflatable balloon device as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,935,013, the disclosure of which is also hereby incorporated in it's entirety. Further experience has shown that it is desirable to control the rate of inflation of the balloon when the stake 148 passes through the internal passageway 138 and into the internal aperture 134, thereby puncturing the membrane on the end of the cylinder 120. If the rate of inflation is too great, it may cause the balloon to burst, or to separate from the valve. On the other hand, if the rate is too slow, much of the surprise from the automatic inflation is lost. There is, therefore, a need for a stake that can puncture a membrane in such a way as to release gas at a controlled rate, in order to optimize the visual impact of an automatically inflating balloon. The present invention is directed toward meeting this need.